Dallas Police Turn to “Plain Language” Instead of Codes
The Dallas Morning News has a fascinating story about the local police department’s move to replace specialized radio codes (like “10-4”) with “plain language” terms (like “understood”). The idea is to create common understandings in situations where there is coordinated activity between separate jurisdictions that use different codes:
Through the years, departments developed their own unique codes or signals that were different from even neighboring agencies. So one department’s 10-13 (“officer in trouble”) was another department’s “request wrecker.”
Police officers also have different ways of saying things.
When East Coast officers say “collar,” they mean arrest, but in Nevada, officers say “rip,” said Tim Dees, a retired police officer and senior editor for lawofficer.com, a law enforcement Web site. With many agencies working together, “if you use the wrong word in the wrong context, people will look at you funny,” he said.
Good idea? I think the answer is: “It depends.”
Every profession has specialized terminology; in theory, this creates more precise understandings within the profession, and less clarity to those outside it. Whether to use the jargon or plain words depends on why you’re using it and whether you care about being understood.
For example, law enforcement has particular terms that cops and prosecutors routinely use. A cop talking to me in casual conversation may say that he saw a “187” and chased a guy with a “burner” until the guy “TCd.” That’s fine in my office, but when he’s talking to the jury, he had better tell them that he saw a murder, and then chased a guy who was armed with a gun until there was a traffic collision.
If he’s telling the story at mealtime, the terms he uses may vary depending on whether his companions are his partners at lunchtime, or his wife’s family at a bar-b-q. Using the same jargon is natural in one context, but may be rude in another, if nobody understands what he’s saying — even though his intent is the same in either context.
Note that people sometimes use specialized terms even when they don’t add clarity. Saying “one eighty-seven” instead of “murder” conveys no more specialized meaning, and takes twice as many syllables. Still, cops and DAs do it all the time. Part of the point may be to emphasize that “we understand this and others don’t.” Every profession or group potentially has an insular “only we understand” aspect; taken to an extreme, it can become cult-like, where members are taught a new language and instructed that members must know the terms or be cast out.
If you’re concerned about being understood by a broader audience, plain terms are better. If you care only about developing a small group of people who share common understandings, code words may be preferable.
But at all times, you need to keep in mind who your audience is, and how they will hear what you’re saying. If you’re selling cars to Latin America and you insist on calling your model the “Nova” out of pride, you’re taking a stand: I won’t change my name to suit my audience. You’re also an idiot who will sell fewer cars, because “no va” means “it doesn’t go.”
Getting back to the police department example, if the department is regularly working with outside agencies and suffering because of misunderstandings, that counsels in favor of a plain language approach. But if the police department mostly speaks to each other, and has a common understanding about certain terms, you might endanger lives by forcing veteran officers to abandon familiar terms in high-stress situations. They may overthink their speech, and that in itself can cause a lack of communication.
There are no easy answers. But deciding on how to express what you need to say depends critically on how it will be understood by your audience. That’s because communication is a two-way street. And while theories are great, communication has to work in the real world. Sometimes, when it doesn’t, people may die as a result.
This is a fascinating topic, and I’d love to hear our resident police officer Jack Dunphy weigh in.
We looked into this soon after 9-11 and Katrina. Our agency is one of four municipalities in a semi-rural Northern California county. We ultimatley decided against it. Even though our 10-code varies slightly between our agencies and the Sheriff’s Department, we never seem to have an issue communicating. The problem we have is communicating with California’s Ultra-Supreme Uber-Agency: CHP. Not only are the codes somewhat different, we can’t transmit on thier net, they refuse to use any other net like CLEMARS, and thier radios, when in close proximity, override everyone elses. But hey, when your in the presence of greatness, don’t complain, right?
Jaime (632344) — 3/26/2009 @ 7:28 amThere is a history of plain talk leading, at least arguably, to misunderstandings that can be more than mildly unfortunate — and not just the OK Corral, either.
The other advantage, from the cop’s POV, is that specified jargon can avoid some embarrassment of the cop or the department — a cop friend of mine, even when off duty, will refer to somebody as “an EDP” when what he clearly means is “a raving, foaming at the mouth, capering and gibbering, nutcase.”
Joel Rosenberg (5ec843) — 3/26/2009 @ 7:34 amIn some cases ‘signals’ are also used to maintain privacy.
Years ago as an EMS newbie I was on the way to a signal 51 with a signal 34. To anyone listening on a scanner all they would have known (for sure) is an address. If we had used plain language they would also know that we were on the way to a suicide attempt by firearm.
Granted…the internet has made most signals and codes in any particular region common knowledge to anyone who is interested…and those who frequently listen in on a scanner would pick up most codes anyway. But we made the attempt.
Most important…I would think…is that responding units (whether they be fire, EMS, or LEA) HAVE to be properly notified as to what they’re walking into. Plain language coupled with the recognition that others outside the responding community might be listening could have a negative effect on communication. We all know that language (even ‘plain’ language) can get corrupted…and my concern would be that dispatchers and others would modify their language out of fear of…insensitive…descriptions.
KB (5a6552) — 3/26/2009 @ 7:38 amshort list of classic hispanic marketing blunders…
happyfeet (ba8a9d) — 3/26/2009 @ 7:45 amThis post would be more appropriate on April 20.
TomHynes (332f2c) — 3/26/2009 @ 7:52 amTomHynes,
Not getting you. Whaddya mean?
Patterico (ca6001) — 3/26/2009 @ 7:53 amApril 20 is a pot thing I think
happyfeet (ba8a9d) — 3/26/2009 @ 7:55 amIn addition to the jargon issue, there’s also the stilted speech problem, one that is common in every law enforcement agency I’ve ever worked with.
I spent a lot of time editing search warrant affidavits to change “At this juncture I exited my vehicle to commence contact with the individual” to “Then I got out of my car to talk to the man.”
Ken (c97a0c) — 3/26/2009 @ 7:55 amI think the impetus for this can be found in DC.
AD - RtR/OS (f1de20) — 3/26/2009 @ 7:58 amFEMA, in its’ responsibility for emergency operations in man-made and natural calamities, has to meld personnel from many different organizations into a (hopefully) smoothly operating entity that can successfully complete the mission.
An example is the Katrina disaster, where FEMA had personnel from the Coast Guard, DoD, various National Guard organizations, and hundreds of different police, fire, and private security entities thrown together into a very intense, and difficult, mission. Just as in the Grenada Invasion, you find out what you don’t know very quickly. In Grenada, we found out that the various services within DoD did not have the capability to talk to each other over their field radios. I’m sure that FEMA found out at Katrina that the various 10-codes were not mutually understandable to all involved, and were an impediment to accomplishing the mission, not an asset.
As a member of the Coast Guard Aux, we were not allowed to use 10-codes, or Q-codes, over the radio, and were encouraged to be brief and succinct, with a minimum of jargon, since we were in many cases communicating with the public during search & rescue operations.
For a few years I was on the local volunteer fire department.
Our county has a population of 60000 with fire departments covering populations of 500 to 20,000.
We’re pretty good about consistent codes amongst the fire/EM services but the local LEOs use a hash of codes, and even rotating unit numbers.
It gets hairy when they end up using an idle fire department unit number for a squad car, and worse yet, when they use a number that belongs to a valid, active unit.
(Worst when they accuse a fireman of impersonating a LEO by using that valid number.)
The balance between security and clarity is tough, but I’ll go with the FEMA guidelines and err on the side of clarity. It’s nice to know what kind of furball you are responding to.
Red County Pete (b1db3b) — 3/26/2009 @ 8:36 amIf security is a concern as to locations, a common grid-code can be used, as long as everyone who has authorized access to the net is aware of it and uses it. But, and this is key, any such security has to be imposed by a central authority, and not done ad hoc. If you can’t communicate on the same page, you shouldn’t be communicating.
AD - RtR/OS (f1de20) — 3/26/2009 @ 8:45 amYayy, a Texas post!
“No va” is funny. Another one was the Mitsubishi Montero. It was marketed as the Pajero at first. “Pajero” means onanist in Spanish.
nk (c90ef8) — 3/26/2009 @ 9:08 amIn my town, on the scanner they say “J3” for a male, and “J5” for a female. Anybody else ever hear that?
gp (72be5d) — 3/26/2009 @ 9:50 amI don’t think, that on the subject of jargon, anything can top “Talking Jive” from “Airplane”, though.
nk (c90ef8) — 3/26/2009 @ 10:09 amPatterico, the “No va” story is BS. See http://spanish.about.com/cs/culture/a/chevy_nova.htm
DLJessup (d3bf75) — 3/26/2009 @ 10:11 amor http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp for articles refuting this urban legend.
I had heard that the Nova thing was a myth. Someone (Snopes?) pointed out that it was like saying no one would buy a dinette set from a store that called it “Notable” because it would sound like it came with no table.
Eirik (a1915a) — 3/26/2009 @ 10:11 amI can see it now:
officer: Do you know why I stopped you?
citizen: No officer, I have no idea.
officer: you were going 90 in a 60.
citizen: no I wasn’t.
officer: yes you were; see here on my radar gun?
citizen:…..
pathetic jerkoff: hey, pig; I read on your personal website that you sit on your ass on your days off and force your wife to work, and that the only reason she’s still married to you is because you knocked her up. I’m playing with the idea of attending your next trial date to take pictures of you.
officer: wait; who the fuck are you? Run along, little boy. No one was talking to you. And don’t talk about my family.
citizen: he’s actually a really good friend of mine, officer, and I stand behind his comments.
pathetic jerkoff: Besides officer,you mentioned them on the PD’s website once, so I can say whatever the fuck I want to about them, no matter how pathetic doing so actually is, and you can’t do shit to me.
citizen: YEAH!
officer: Anyway, back to the reason I stopped you in the first place. You really have no leg to stand on, citizen; if you would just sign here….
pathetic jerkoff: you sure are a poopy pants pooper, officer poopy-pants.
officer: You need to leave now, pathetic jerkoff, before I show you what happens to people who talk about my family…
pathetic jerkoff: ….
citizen: Wait, was that a threat? Did you just threaten pathetic jerkoff?
officer: Of course not. Now, back to the ticket matte…..
citizen: DEATH THREAT!
officer: What?
citizen: You just threatened that man’s life!
officer: Are you high?
citizen: (rips ticket) I will not be a party to an officer that makes death threats in my presence.
officer: You can’t be serious. Either way, that doesn’t absolve you from the fact that my radar gun proves you were going 30 MPH over the speed limit…
citizen: LALALALALALALA!!! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!!!
Veritas (c4d50f) — 3/26/2009 @ 10:24 amPatterico: “420” is a slang term for smoking marijuana, allegedly because it was once used as a police code for that offense.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 3/26/2009 @ 10:31 amI wonder if the jargon was more necessary in the past because of less signal clarity. Now that we have better microphones, clearer (digital) signals, and the ability to electronically edit a transmission in real-time to reduce noise, it may make more sense to use plain terms.
I also agree that the 10-codes set police apart from the rest of us, which can be good and bad (probably more bad than good).
Daryl Herbert (b65640) — 3/26/2009 @ 12:09 pmI wouldn’t buy an Audi TT.
daleyrocks (5d22c0) — 3/26/2009 @ 12:10 pmRed County Pete #10:
It’s nice to know what kind of furball you are responding to.
Yes, better put. Its nice to know…preferrable even. But certainly not a prerequisite to response…as I implied.
KB (5a6552) — 3/26/2009 @ 12:32 pmMyth or not, the “nova” example has utility as an example of where tailoring a message is appropriate. But less than a proof of where intentionalism arrogantly fails, it’s an example of the proverb “a time and place to every purpose”.
It’s not a tenant of intentionalism, or should not be, that you must ignore negative connotations of the words or labels you choose and have no theory of mind about your audience’s reaction, or that principle demands you package a product or a message unattractively.
Rather, intentionalism requires that however stupidly employed, one acknowlege the namer of the car had HIS reasons, and that. it’s improper to base the intention of the car-namer solely on the basis of the reaction of the receiver. Perhaps the car namer hates his employer and is a sabateur or rival, and he chose a mean name on purpose. Perhaps he meant to name the car “star” and was clumsy in naming the car. Whatever his reasons, he had them at the time he named the car. A reasonable interpretation of his INTENTION can not be based solely on the reaction of a third party. That reaction can be a CLUE, but it isn’tt enough. “Nova” always makes me think of the hot chick riding with Charleton Heston when he finds Lady Liberty in chunks on the beach. This association of mine does not determine the INTENTION of the car-namer.
The question of propriety or salesmanship is an entirely separate question. Either, or both sides of a linguistic transaction may be at fault in an attempted communication that fails to achieve it’s purpose.
The savvy salesman or advertiser always tries to tap into associations and connotations and uses his theory of mind about his target to be manipulated into buying what he is selling.
His methods may vary ( in both method and effectiveness). That won’t change his intention to someone someone else says it is, hoping to sabotage HIM, or gain some leg up in the deal.
It’s perfectly reasonable to argue that messages should be tailored, but it does not follow that in every case that a wrong interpretation should be humored or catered to.
There is great danger in doing so in the political arena, where cowing unwelcome ideas is part of the game for some players.
To everything there is a season, there’s a time and a place, but that does not mean automatic concession of intention.
Strategic impropriety is now necessary to challenge the assumptions of the Left.
Your basic argument, and Charles’ at LGF’s, is that the characterizations of the press/ built in assumptions of a worked on or pre-primed audience of the soft middle, are too strong to be fought against, that it’s foolish and counterproductive to try.
You say we are weak, sir, against the power of media, but when
will we be stronger? When , thanks to a polite reception of Obama’s reshaping of the nation, we have even less power to speak? When saying such things can have you taken off the radio by force of law?
No, Rush made heads whio around. He told an important truth.
Obamas success is America’s failure. There are some things more important than having a comfy job or the security of health insurance – the freedom to rise or fall on your own merits, to own your own property, to govern your own life. The kind of intrusions on personal liberty and self-government, the sweeping governmental intrusions into every sphere of what should be the private sector, mean the death of that nation founded after the revolution, it’s perversion into a socialist backwater where you had better damn well know that it’s the government that butters every slice of bread.
I hope Obama fails.
SarahW (fdd722) — 3/26/2009 @ 12:39 pmWe don’t use the “10 code” in the LAPD, and I’m sometimes mystified when talking with sheriff’s deputies or other cops who do. We do refer to crimes by their corresponding Penal Code sections, but any cop in California would know what we’re talking about if we referred to a 459 (burglary), 211 (robbery), or 242 (battery). I predict that even after Dallas P.D. makes their transition there will still be some old terms they cling to, either out of habit or tradition.
Jack Dunphy (1bb566) — 3/26/2009 @ 1:14 pmKB #20
But certainly not a prerequisite to response…as I implied.
I’ll agree, usually.
In our circumstances, our territory was about 400 square miles.
We could respond to the station in 10-20 minutes and get rolling shortly thereafter.
If we had the wrong gear, we weren’t usually in a position to ask the next unit to get the right stuff.
We had to go back and get it.
Bummer if the response site was in the Farthest Boondocks.
Fatal under the wrong conditions.
To make life more fun, Law Enforcement was usually 20 minutes out, when they weren’t at the wrong end of the county.
Red County Pete (0dcd33) — 3/26/2009 @ 4:22 pmIf a subject was seriously high (local jargon is ETOH) we wanted to know.
Quasi-plain language helps.
Being able to avoid saying “Billie-Jean is high as a kite and waving a pistol about” over the air is also nice.
For what it’s worth, the county is starting to go to fully digital encoded radios.
Assuming they work in the area (I have some doubts, due to the frequencies, long distances, and the terrain), this should reduce the need to be coy over the air.
All police, fire and rescue organizations in this area switched to plain language several years ago. No problem, say what you see and let the chips fall where they may. Hear your baby boy/girls name broadcast over the county, sorry about that. If they weren’t doing something they weren’t supposed to no one would hear their name.
Scrapiron (996c34) — 3/26/2009 @ 4:56 pmI lived in Mexico for a while, and the “Nova” thing is crap. Regular gasoline from Pemex (the state run monopoly) was (is?) called “Nova,” too. No one takes that to mean that it won’t make the car go, any more than any American would read an ad describing a kitchen set as “notable” and conclude that it has no table. Or see a sign for “Joe Schmoe, Therapist” and include he must be a … oh, never mind.
Xrlq (62cad4) — 3/26/2009 @ 4:57 pmKorean Air Lines went from having the industry’s worst crash record to having one of the best, partly by strictly limiting jargon in communications between co-pilots and other flight crew.
Seems a lot of accidents were caused by verbal misunderstandings.
Although the more important change was that the airline mandated a move away from the Korean cultural more that prevented a pilot’s underlings from questioning his decisions. Seems in a lot of crashes, the pilot got something wrong and his subordinates were unwilling to correct him.
I wonder how often this happens in police departments?
Hax Vobiscum (23258e) — 3/26/2009 @ 5:16 pmIs there a website for the Seoul PD?
AD - RtR/OS (f1de20) — 3/26/2009 @ 5:19 pmThis appears to be driven by FEMA mandates that all public safety orgs in the US begin standardizing their incident management systems.
Back in the 60s there were several large fires in the SoCal area where large amount of mutual aid resources responded from other parts of California. There were both communication and organizational problems during these fires. Out of this came a California solution called FIRESCOPE. The FIRESCOPE solutions were a common Incident Command System and a mandatory removal of code speak in radio communication.
The California Incident Command System developed by FIRESCOPE has shown its utility and efficiency during massive campaign brush fires where hundreds of firefighting units from dozens of departments are able to work together with a minimum of confusion. FEMA after 9/11 & Katrina has mandated that ALL public safety orgs in the US use a system “NIMS”(National Incident Management System) that is based primarily on the California ICS system. As stated before part of the ICS doctrine is plain text speech only, no code speak.
Dallas PD may be a test case or may be just being proactive.
Fire Captain (ad7564) — 3/27/2009 @ 9:04 amLinks that explain it all:
http://www.firescope.org/about-us.htm
http://www.fema.gov/emergency/nims/AboutNIMS.shtm
Fire Captain (ad7564) — 3/27/2009 @ 9:14 am